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Robert Doisneau (April 14, 1912, Gentilly, Val - de - Marne – April 1, 1994) was a French photographer. In the 1930s he used a Leica on the streets of Paris; together with Henri Cartier - Bresson he was a pioneer of photojournalism. He is renowned for his 1950 image Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville), a photo of a couple kissing in the busy streets of Paris. Robert Doisneau was appointed a Chevalier (Knight) of the National Order of the Légion d'honneur in 1984. Robert Doisneau was known for his modest, playful, and ironic images of amusing juxtapositions, mingling social classes, and eccentrics in contemporary Paris streets and cafes. Influenced by the work of André Kertész, Eugène Atget, and Henri Cartier - Bresson, in over twenty books Doisneau presented a charming vision of human frailty and life as a series of quiet, incongruous moments.
Doisneau's work gives unusual prominence and dignity to children's street culture; returning again and again to the theme of children at play in the city, unfettered by parents. His work treats their play with seriousness and respect. In his honour, and owing to this, there are several Ecole Primaire (Primary Schools) named after him. An example is at Veretz (Indre - et - Loire). Robert
Doisneau is one of France's best known photographers, for his street
photography and the many playful images in everyday French life. His
photographs over the course of several decades provide people with a
great record of French life. He has published over twenty books with
realistic and charming pictures of personal moments in the lives of
individuals. Doisneau's father, a plumber, died on active service in World War I when Robert was about four. His mother died when he was seven so he was then raised by an unloving aunt. At thirteen he enrolled at the École Estienne, a craft school where he graduated in 1929 with diplomas in engraving and lithography. Here he had his first contact with the arts, taking classes in Figure drawing and Still life. When
he was 16 he took up amateur photography but was reportedly so shy that
he started by photographing cobble stones before progressing to
children and then adults. At the end of the 1920s Doisneau found work as a draughtsman (lettering artist) in the advertising industry at Atelier Ullmann (Ullmann Studio), a creative graphics studio that specialised in the pharmaceutical industry.
Here he took an opportunity to change career by also acting as camera
assistant in the studio and then becoming a staff photographer.
While working at
Atelier Ullmann Doisneau
had helped out as a camera assistant and developed into a staff
photographer, but in 1931 he left both the studio and advertising,
taking a job as an assistant with the modernist photographer
André Vigneau. In 1932 he sold his first photo story to Excelsior magazine. In 1934 he began working as an industrial advertising photographer for the Renault car factory at Boulogne - Billancourt. Working at Renault increased Doisneau’s interest in working with photography
and people. In 1991 he admitted that the years at the Renault car
factory marked “the beginning of his career as a photographer and the
end of his youth.” Five years later, in 1939, he was fired for being
constantly late. He was forced to try freelance advertising, engraving
and postcard photography to earn his living. At that time the French postcard industry was the largest in Europe, postcards served as greetings cards as well as vacation souvenirs. In 1939 he was hired by Charles Rado of the Rapho photo agency and travelled throughout France in search of picture stories. This is where he took his first professional street photographs.
Doisneau worked at Rapho until the outbreak of World War II,
whereupon he was drafted into the French army as both a soldier and
photographer. He was in the army until 1940 and from then until the end
of the war in 1945 used his draughtsmanship, lettering artistry and
engraving skills to forge passports and identification papers for the French Resistance. Some
of Doisneau's most memorable photographs were taken after the war. He
returned to freelance photography and sold photographs to Life and
other international magazines. He briefly joined the Alliance Photo
Agency but rejoined the Rapho agency in 1946 and remained with them
throughout his working life, despite receiving an invitation from Henri Cartier - Bresson to join Magnum Photos. His
photographs never ridiculed the subjects; thus he refused to photograph
women whose heads had been shaved as punishment for sleeping with
Germans. In 1948 Doisneau was contracted by Vogue to
work as a fashion photographer. The editors believed he would bring a
fresh and more casual look the magazine but Doisneau didn’t enjoy
photographing beautiful women in elegant surroundings, he preferred
street photography. When he could escape from the studio, he
photographed ever more in the streets of Paris. The
1950s were Doisneau's peak but the 1960s were his wilderness years. In
the 1970s Europe began to change and editors looked for new reportage
that would show the sense of a new social era. All over Europe, the
old style picture magazines were closing as television got the public's
attention. Doisneau continued to work, producing children's books,
advertising photography and celebrity portraits including Alberto
Giacometti, Jean Cocteau, Fernand Léger, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Doisneau worked with writers and poets such as Blaise Cendrars and Jacques Prevert,
and he credited Prevert with giving him the confidence to photograph
the everyday street scenes that most people simply ignored. Group
XV was established in 1946 in Paris to promote photography as art and
drawing attention to the preservation of French photographic heritage.
Doisneau joined the Group in 1950 and participated alongside
Rene - Jacques, Willy Ronis and Pierre Jahan. In 1950 he created his most recognizable work for Life - Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville), a photo of a couple kissing in the busy streets of Paris, which
became an internationally recognised symbol of young love in Paris. The
identity of the couple remained a mystery until 1992. Jean and Denise Lavergne erroneously believed themselves to be the couple in The Kiss,
and when Robert and Annette met them for lunch in the 1980s he "did not
want to shatter their dream" so he said nothing. This resulted in them
taking him to court for "taking their picture without their knowledge",
because under French law an individual owns the rights to their own
likeness. The court action forced Doisneau to reveal that he posed the
shot using Françoise Delbart and Jacques Carteaud, lovers whom
he had just seen kissing but had not initially photographed because of
his natural reserve, but he approached them and asked if they would
repeat le baiser. He won the court case against the Lavergnes. The couple in Le baiser were Françoise Delbart, 20, and Jacques Carteaud, 23, both aspiring actors. In 2005 Françoise Bornet (née Delbart) stated that "He
told us we were charming, and asked if we could kiss again for the
camera. We didn't mind. We were used to kissing. We were doing it all
the time then, it was delicious. Monsieur Doisneau was adorable, very
low key, very relaxed." They posed at the Place de la Concorde, the Rue de Rivoli and finally the Hôtel de Ville. The photograph was published in the June 12, 1950, issue of Life. The relationship between Delbart and Carteaud only lasted for nine months. Delbart continued her acting career, but Carteaud gave up acting to become a wine producer. In
1950 Françoise Bornet was given an original print of the photo,
bearing Doisneau's signature and stamp, as part of the payment for her
"work", and thus her subsequent attempt at litigation in the 1990s was
rejected by the court. In April 2005 she sold the print at auction for 155,000€ to an unidentified Swiss collector via the Paris auctioneers Artcurial Briest - Poulain - Le Fur.
In
1936 Doisneau married Pierrette Chaumaison whom he had met in 1934 when
she was cycling through a village where he was on holiday. They had two
daughters, Annette (b.1942) and Francine (b.1947). Annette worked as
his assistant from 1979 until his death. Pierrette died in 1993 suffering from Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Doisneau died six months later, having had a triple heart bypass and suffering from acute pancreatitis. Annette said "We won in the courts, (re: The Kiss)
but my father was deeply shocked. He discovered a world of lies, and it
hurt him. 'The Kiss' ruined the last years of his life. Add that to my
mother suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and I think it's
fair to say he died of sadness." Doisneau
was in many ways a shy and humble man, like his photography, still
delivering his own work at the height of his fame. He chastised
Francine for charging an 'indecent' daily fee of £2,000 for his
work on a beer advertising campaign – he wanted only the rate of an
"artisan photographer". He lived in southern Paris (Gentilly, Val - de - Marne, Montrouge and 13th arrondissement of Paris) throughout his life and died in 1994. He is buried in the cemetery at Raizeux beside his wife Pierrette. Robert Doisneau was appointed a Chevalier of the Order of the Légion d'honneur in 1984.
He won several awards throughout his life, including: the Balzac Prize in 1986 (Honoré de Balzac), the Grand Prix National de la Photographie in 1983, the Niépce Prize in 1956 (Nicéphore Niépce), the Kodak Prize in 1947. A short film, "Le Paris de Robert Doisneau", was made in 1973. In 1992 the French actress and producer Sabine Azéma made the film Bonjour Monsieur Doisneau. The Maison de la photographie Robert Doisneau in Gentilly, Val - de - Marne,
is a photographic gallery named in his honour. In honour of his
photography of children's street culture, there are several 'Ecole
Primaire' (Primary Schools) named after him. An example is at Véretz (Indre - et - Loire). The
photography of Robert Doisneau has had a revival since his death in
1994. Many of his portraits and photos of Paris from the end of World
War II through the 1950s have been turned into calendars and postcards
and have become icons of French life. |